


What If I Don't See It

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Fictober 2019 [22]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, F/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Julian struggles with a life of peace.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak
Series: Fictober 2019 [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696495
Kudos: 12





	What If I Don't See It

**Author's Note:**

> For the Fictober prompt: "What if I don't see it?"

The only light that filtered into the room came from the moon outside, slanting through the parted curtains to pool on the floor. But it was enough for him to see by, and hate what he saw.

Julian scowled at himself in the mirror, his scarlet eye glaring back at him, a cursed trophy of a time he wished he could forget. His hair, unruly even on the best of occasions, tangled around his head like brambles and didn’t even hide the damned thing. He’d grown tired of the eyepatch long ago, tired of the man he became while wearing it and tired of the constant vigilance he needed to adopt to make sure it stayed put. He had revealed the horrible secret beneath to Reyja, after all, and she stood by him… but she was special.

Ah, Reyja. Julian’s glower lost its bite as he leaned towards his reflection, his eyes seeking the marks she had left on his throat. There, near the notch of his jaw. And another beside his Adam’s apple. Two more clustered together where his neck met his shoulder. Indentations of her teeth in fields of red and purple, signaling that he was hers. He had left his own badges scattered across her collarbones, the only bruises he swore would ever mark her pale skin. She could do as she liked with him, but she was far too precious, too dear for him to ruin.

Part of him knew she would never hurt him, no matter how he asked. She was gentle, soft even when she teased, and offered rewards far outweighing the tasks that preceded them. Simply put, she loved him. She was in love with him. How he had ever tricked her into that, he didn’t know…

No. Julian shook his head, bracing himself on the bathroom counter. There were no tricks. “Reyja loves you,” he said aloud, speaking sternly to himself in the mirror. “She loves you, Julian, and she would not want you to— to—” His voice cracked and he dropped his gaze, squeezing his eyes shut as tears began to flood the edges of his vision.

_She wouldn’t want me to feel like this. Like a failure. Like a freak. She wouldn’t want me to fall so far back. She wouldn’t want to bear this burden again. If I truly love her, and god knows I do, I should go. I just have to hope she’ll understand someday…_

“Juley?“

Reyja herself stood in the bathroom doorway, eyes wide against the dark. Moonlight haloed her head, casting her shadow against the opposite wall. She took a hesitant step towards him, hand outstretched.

"Jul, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

He froze, sniffling. “I— I was…"

Her warm fingers touched his arm and he jerked back.

"Julian, please.” Reyja summoned a tiny sphere of dim light and set it in the air overhead. “You can cry with me or talk, whatever you need. But I want to help, if you’ll have me.”

His chin trembled as another wave of tears swept over him. “Oh, Reyja,” he sobbed, hugging himself as he retreated from her. “I can’t. I won’t! I will not drag you down again. You’ve been doing s-s-so w-well…” He hit the wall and slid down, folding into himself when he reached the floor.

“Oh, Juley. It’s bad tonight, huh?” She swallowed hard and crouched, balancing herself with one hand on the edge of their large bathtub. “Can I just sit with you, then?”

He shrugged, not trusting himself to speak.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

Her footsteps left and returned, and the weight of a thick down comforter settled around his back before Reyja’s heat pressed up beside him, snuggling against his chest.

“Is this okay?” she asked softly.

He nodded, opening himself to curl one arm around her beneath the blanket.

“You can keep crying. You’ll feel better. I always do.”

Julian felt his heart constrict as he drew a shuddering breath, then sagged against her. He couldn’t stop his tears from spilling even if he wanted to, and spill they did, leaking over his cheeks and dripping from his chin to her shoulder.

“Good, Juley, that’s good.” Her voice soothed him, like her hand on his knee, like her very presence. “You can get closer if you need to. I’m all for you right now.”

With another sob, he shifted, turning so his back rested against the cupboards instead of the wall. He pulled her into his lap and wrapped himself around her, engulfing her in his long limbs. He pressed his nose into her hair and slowly, slowly, cried himself out, rocking back and forth, until the scent of her calmed him down and he could suck in a normal breath.

“I’m sorry I woke you, darling. It must be very late,” he said raggedly.

“It’s alright, lovely. It wasn’t so much you waking me as me noticing that you weren’t in bed and getting up to find you, anyway.”

He blinked, frowning. “You can feel if I’m not beside you in your sleep?”

“Yeah?” Reyja twisted to look at him. “Do you not do that?”

“I… truthfully, I’ve never checked. You’re usually still abed in the mornings and we go to sleep at the same time.”

“Hmm. I’ll have to get up one of these nights and see how long it takes you to wake up too.”

Julian grimaced. She had a lot of faith that he would be able to do such a thing.

“Juley?”

“Mm?”

“This was about me again, wasn’t it? I mean, you said it was, but there’s more, isn’t there?” She squeezed his hand and sighed. “I remember having to tell our patients that healing doesn’t happen all at once, and it never goes straight up the flank of a mountain. In order to get from one side to the other, first you have to find a pass, then you have to start the fucking hike.” Reyja smiled bitterly. “And I know, and you know, that we both hate hiking. You follow wrong paths. You have to backtrack. Maybe you slip going up a steep slope. Maybe you slip a lot, or in the same place several times. Or both. You never know. It’s uncharted.”

Julian found himself grinning. Reyja did enjoy her metaphors.

“But you don’t need to hike alone, Jujubee. If we have to climb this shitty mountain, we can do it together. Maybe I have been doing better recently, but it’s because I have a helping hand to catch me when I fall. And so do you, and you always will. As long as I have hands, they’re yours too.”

He pressed his cheek against hers, new tears already brewing though the old ones were still drying in their tracks. “How do I learn to think of all this as you do, my love?” he asked softly, stroking her wrists. “When things get, ah, how they get, I just can’t see another way.”

“Well, it was my job,” she chuckled. “But otherwise? There isn’t a shortcut or anything. It takes practice and consciously choosing different thoughts and letting your feelings pass without acting on them. Things like that.”

“I was starting to do that, I think. I imagined, erm, I imagined what you would say, if you could hear what I was saying to myself.”

“Did it work?”

Julian hesitated. “It started to.”

“That’s good! That’s a jumping-off point.”

Almost despite himself, he smiled. “It is, isn’t it?”

Reyja leaned back against him and sighed contentedly. “It’s not easy, Juley. You’ve watched me struggle and waded through enough of your own shit to know that. But we can do it.”

“Who am I to nay-say such confidence, hm?”

She tilted her head up as he bent down and they shared a gentle kiss. “Next time? It’ll be me saying that to you and we’ll do this all again.”

“Maybe so,” Julian said. “But we’ll do it together.”


End file.
